Compassion Fatigue and the

Famine Formula

The Horn of Africa, 2011

Compassion Fatigue:

• Analysts of journalism argue that the media has caused widespread compassion fatigue in society by saturating newspapers and news shows with often decontextualized images and stories of suffering

• This has caused the public to become cynical, or become resistant to helping people who are suffering.

The Image as Message

• Image as metonym – part stands in for the whole

• Single image seen to explain the whole event

• This is especially the case with “atrocity pictures”

• Simple, iconic images of famine – distilling down the story

• Personifications that help to explain events, with victims, heroes, and villains

• Images can have a didactic function, serve to focus the audience’s attention

• But this attention is not sustained, is short-term

• What effect do these images have on audiences?

• Simple images lend to simple conclusions about the causes of famine

• Contribute to causes of famine being attributed to nature

• “Simple emergency”• Natural disaster

• But what if famine is a “complex emergency”?

• The natural versus the human-made

• Complex causes such as war, economic breakdown

• Examples of other “complex emergencies” linked to famine

• 1941–44 Leningrad (Today’s St. Petersburg) famine

• Caused by a 900-day blockade by German troops during WWII

• About one million Leningrad residents starved, froze, or were bombed to death in the winter of 1941–42, when supply routes to the city were cut off and temperatures dropped to −40 degrees

• News –values• “If it bleeds, it leads”• Scott Bob, Somalia 1992• “My editor wants us to

get the sounds of death”

• Framing the emergency in particular ways

Media Structures

• Famines happen to Others

• Stereotyped images• Stock phrases• Common abstractions• Reinforcing established

ways of interpreting news

• Drawing on reserves of stories already told

The Famine Formula

• 1. People must be starving to death

• 2. Causes and solutions must be simplified

• 3. Famine story told as morality play between good and evil

• 4. There must be images

The 4-Stage Chronological Pattern

• 1. The famine is imminent• 2. Progression of starvation• 3. Precipitating event leads

to moral call-to-action• 4. If no other major

international or national event takes its place in popular imaginary, then becomes cultural and moral bellwether (frontrunner, leader)

Victims

• Women and children• Rarely given voice, but

are often photographed• Images of innocence

Heroes

• Generally Western• Intervene to provide

humanitarian aid• Eg. Medecins Sans

Frontieres• Doctors, nurses, aid

workers• Given extensive voice in

coverage

Villains

• Those who prevent humanitarian aid from being distributed

• Eg. “Warlords”• Villains become more a

part of the story as it unfolds

The “Archetypical Famine”

• Ethiopia, 1984• Several years of drought• Domestic priorities • Mengistu Haile Mariam

leader of government• 46% of national budget spent

on arms• Decade earlier, overthrow of

Emperor Haile Selassie• Estimated that between

400,000 and one million people died

The Media Influence

• Brian Stewart CBC Ethiopia 1984

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFPr-zAXNuc

• Brian Stewart on Birhan Woldu, 2004

• www.cbc.ca/news/background/ethiopia

• Michel Buerk BBC report on the famine in Ethiopia 1984

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj2jf0US8zI

• “Maybe one of the most important and influential pieces of news ever broadcasted.”

• Buerk's autobiography says it made the Australian PM weep in public and started a massive international aid operation

Popular Culture Responds to the Crisis

• Also inspired Bob Geldof (with Midge Ure from Ultravox) to write “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, released 7 December 1984

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5cX_ncZLls

• The fastest selling single ever

• Raised ₤8 million

• Inspired USA for Africa’s “We are the World.”

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9BNoNFKCBI

Live Aid

• 13 July 1985• 2 simultaneous concerts • Wembley Stadium,

London, UK – approximately 72,000 people

• JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, US – approximately 100,000 people

The Communication Link

• Large scale satellite links and live TV broadcasts mean watched by a global audience in 150 nations of an estimated 1.9 million people

• At one stage, claim that 95% of all TVs were tuned in

• Imagine making this happen in the time before Twitter, cell phones, etc.

• Joan Baez, on stage in US:

• “This is your Woodstock and it is long overdue.”

Show Me the Money

• Geldof had hoped to raise ₤1 million (around $2.4 million US)

• Actually raised ₤150 million

• Acts include (UK) U2, Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney and (US) Madonna, Bob Dylan, CSNY, Ozzy Osborne

Somalia Famine of 1992

Live 8

• Make Poverty History Snap UK Ad

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFx9cINLQoc

• US AD• http://www.youtube.co

m/watch?v=3mJU58A9SNc&feature=related

Famine Today

• Horn of Africa – including Ethiopia, Somalia, and Sudan – 2011

• Said to be the most widespread in 25 years

• http://www.one.org/c/international/hottopic/4060/

• 2011 The F Word: Famine is the Real Obscenity (US)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzcRSr6PW_o

• one.org• http://www.one.org/int

ernational/

Compare and Contrast

• Live Aid • Live 8